One of the things that I’m not sure I’ve made perfectly clear here at Comics Reader is that I’m, relatively speaking, a ZERO HOUR baby. To be a little more clear, my experience as a comics fan began roughly at the time of the 1994 “Crisis in Time” event that saw every book DC published at that time, including a slew of new launches, basically reboot with #0. If that sounds familiar, then you know your New 52.
ZERO HOUR was its own flashpoint, and doesn’t get nearly enough modern credit, and maybe I say that because I was just getting into the chance to read comics on a regular basis at that particular point in time. It was Ron Marz and Darryl Banks’ GREEN LANTERN that served as my most consistent gateway at that time (which was only appropriate, since, at least in 1994, ZERO HOUR served as the culmination of Hal Jordan’s story, following “Emerald Twilight” and the dawn of Parallax), but so much of what I later came to admire about comics came about because of this event, it became increasingly difficult for me to forget about it. My brother got the complete set of zero issues, something I was infinitely jealous about, and would sneak looks at them whenever I got the chance. Like the New 52, DC used the opportunity to vet new and retooled concepts (FATE obviously didn’t stick). The more I caught up with these efforts, the more I became convinced, as I still am, that PRIMAL FORCE was one of the great unsung creative efforts in comic book lore. I somehow managed to avoid STARMAN, though; no matter how much critical acclaim it garnered (much the same way as I never considered reading SANDMAN during its original run, something I’m still trying to make up for, even though I’ve come to deeply admire Neil Gaiman as a writer and especially novelist) I remained a committed dilettante to James Robinson’s opus.
It probably didn’t help that STARMAN was best known for its deep mythology and sense of history; I already had GREEN LANTERN, and was getting ready to obsess over Mark Waid’s FLASH, which, even with “The Return of Barry Allen” and “Terminal Velocity,” was only getting warmed up. Robinson, besides, was playing with a legacy that meant nothing to me; Ted Knight hadn’t truly been relevant in decades, and none of the subsequent attempts until ZERO HOUR had occurred anywhere near my experience. Even the emotionally jarring experience of brothers David and Jack Knight meant little to me, since Jack was always planned to be a rebel, and I liked my heroes pure back then. I saw nothing at that time that dissuaded me from believing that I would receive any comparable pleasure from STARMAN as I knew from Kyle Rayner and Wally West.
I sampled Jack every now and again, but it never seemed to be the right sample. In STARMAN #38 (the resulting reaction had nothing to do with guest artist Dusty Abell, a talent sorely missed these days), a new version of the Justice League Europe is used as cannon fodder for characters I couldn’t properly appreciate in a vacuum, and poor Amazing Man, a hero with an unfortunate name but fond personal memories from EXTREME JUSTICE, was unceremoniously among them. All told, I read a total of five issues over the course of the book’s first five years, though the trend, excluding the zero issue, actually looked remarkably promising in 1998. I just stopped making the effort, and when I quit comics the next year, didn’t even think twice about it again, for a good long time.
Eventually, I bought the SINS OF THE FATHER collection of the book’s first arc, and that read pretty well. When DC “resurrected” some long-cancelled series during BLACKEST NIGHT, I found that STARMAN #81 was actually one of the specials I was looking forward to most. I tracked down STARMAN #80, the actual final issue, and enjoyed that. I think part of the problem was always that I didn’t care one way or the other about James Robinson himself. His work has proven to be consistently erratic over the years, in that he has never been one of those writers who suddenly becomes ubiquitous (though STARMAN did alone him to do just that, for a while, and just outside of my experience). I knew about THE GOLDEN AGE, his famed Justice Society effort, but didn’t read that until years later. I read his Superman books but didn’t feel very inspired, much as I’d feel about his JUSTICE LEAGUE OF AMERICA material, except for JUSTICE LEAGUE: CRY FOR JUSTICE. CFJ was one of my favorite books, consistently, during its initial release, and Robinson did me a favor without even knowing it with the essays he included each issue about his love for the characters he’d chosen to use in the story. Here was finally my entry-point James Robinson experience!
Okay, so at this point I hope you are aware that Borders, the second-largest bookstore chain in the US, finished its liquidation process this month, and thus is no longer in business. This is particularly relevant to me, since I worked for the company during its final five years of existence. Anyone who’s ever worked during such a liquidation perhaps will share the temptation to begin carving the place up for the resulting bargain prices while at the same time experience paranoia at losing out on particular targets. One of mine was STARMAN OMNIBUS VOLUME 5. Luckily, as you might assume, I was able to get it.
The star attraction, as it were, of this volume is the space epic “Stars My Destination,” which basically unites every member of the Starman legacy. Having never read the series regularly, it was certainly quite a gamble, considering the volume covers #s 47-60, but Robinson provides remarkably candid commentary to both the period in general and issue by issue. In short, I became compelled to read the rest of the omnibus collection (which, practically speaking, probably won’t happen too soon), and am now a fan of STARMAN. These issues don’t spend too much time developing Jack Knight, but that’s okay. Hey, so when does that MIST book get underway, James? Hopefully soon?
Anyway, I’m just glad to finally close this particular ZERO HOUR loop.
Robinson died after his run on superman, maybe even before that, you are just too blind to see It.
ReplyDeleteI love your view in comapring The New 52 and Zero Hour, while I still think Zero Hour is better than Flashpoint (a very weak effort from the creator of Blackest Night, That was a great series!) in that was better writen and a lot more exiting, Flashpoint is anticlimatic, It comes from Blackest Night and Final Crisis that were the real stars of the decade.
However there is something similar in both relaunches, the series that spawned from them, 80% are going down and the rest would be adjusted to the old universe. Because the New 52 are just a move to make money, they are the new Amalgam Universe.
From Zero Hour we got Starman, that triumphed while the other series died, what series are going to stick? Batwoman already seems like the new Starman in art and script, All-star western have all the references to the old heroes (Scalphunter, Batlash, etc.) just like starman, and Demon Knights do the same but ion the dark ages instead of the old west.
Scott Snyder is the new talent, just like robinson was after Zero Hour, and like Robinson, Snyder started on Batman. Batman, the only character whose continuity was perfect from the begining to the end.
And Robinson? Even he accepts that Cry For Justice was crap and that working on the JLA was a great pain due to the rotation of artist and impositions from the editor. Now he reedems himself on SHADE, the new series that spawns from Starman, It could be seen as Starman part II that focus in the last superhero of Opal city.